http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
WITH ALL THE FOCUS on female voters in
this year's election, it's a wonder no
one has mentioned the presidential
candidates' positions on a woman's
right to choose -- her mode of
transportation, that is. For millions of women,
especially mothers, the private automobile
represents freedom.

Yet, one candidate sees
the automobile as enemy No. 1: "a mortal threat
to the security of every nation that is more
deadly than that of any military enemy we are
ever again likely to confront," warned Al Gore in
his 1993 treatise "Earth in the Balance." "It
makes little sense for each of us to burn up all
the energy necessary to travel with several
thousand pounds of metal wherever we go," he
said. Instead, he'd like us all to take subways,
buses, trains and trolleys. So, how would this
affect women's lives? I certainly know how it
would affect mine.

I've chosen to live in a rural community, more
than 50 miles away from my downtown office in
Washington, DC. I do my writing from home,
but travel to Washington at least a couple of
days per week. I could take the train in -- and
occasionally do -- but I pay for it in lost sleep
and convenience. The commute from my home
to my office takes slightly over an hour if I drive.
If I take the train, it takes almost two and half
hours each way, door-to-door, and still requires
me to drive 10 miles to the train station.

But even with the distances I have to cover, my need for an automobile
today is nothing compared to what it was when I had young children at
home. I learned to drive a car when I was pregnant with my first child. My
husband and I were both college students at the time. My husband
usually took morning classes, while I stayed home with our son. We
switched places at noon, with barely enough time for him to toss me the
car keys as I rushed out the door to campus. The local bus was out of
the question.

As the children grew, and we entered the work world, driving to work
meant we could leave later and get home sooner to be with the kids than
if we relied on public transportation. And if an emergency occurred or
one of the kids got sick, I could rush home or to their school
immediately, as I did on more than one occasion.

And it's not just so-called working moms who need their cars. Young
mothers, whose full-time job is running a household and raising their
kids, probably spend more time in their cars than most commuters do.
Without cars to run family errands and transport children to and from
school and extracurricular activities, both moms' and kids' lives would
be more difficult and restricted.

In 1993, Al Gore said that we ought "to establish a coordinated global
program to accomplish the strategic goal of eliminating the internal
combustion engine over, say, a 25-year period." If we give him 8 years
as president, how far will he take us toward achieving that goal? And
exactly how would he go about it? These are questions the more than 90
percent of Americans who drive to work ought to be asking Mr. Gore.

I don't know many men or women who would easily give up the right to
drive their own cars, when and where they wished. And despite rising
gasoline prices, most Americans are choosing bigger cars and trucks
than ever. I doubt that candidate Gore approves, though he says very
little on the subject on the campaign trail. But what would President Gore
do about it? Is he willing to tell those soccer moms to leave the minivan
in the garage or the working woman to turn in her new SUV and hop a
bus? Or is he just going to impose higher federal gasoline taxes to
discourage driving, as they do in Europe? Perhaps we better find out
before we give him the chance to put that coordinated global program to
eliminate the internal combustion engine in place as
president.